Full Tilt's .com freeroll to the Main Event - what strategy?

Hi Guys,

Would like to get your opinion on these if you have played or just have suggestions.

I have started to play these more becuase I spent my bank on the buy in satellites and am now broke lol.

I adopted a sit and wait for premium hands approach, but by the time I get them or if we are getting towards the last 10% of the field; I am up against so many huge stacks that the odds are well against me surviving.

So what is best? Push early with weaker hands and hope to start with a big stack that you can use to accumulate more chips? If so... what would you consider a hand to push with? Any pair? AK - Ax? Broadway cards?

Or do I carry on playing only premium hands until I double up sufficiently or get knocked out?

Interested in your replies.

simply put, it's a crapshoot. to win it you're gonna have to run very very good. hope you get your good cards early and just push (AJ+, KQ+, JJ+). if you win good for you, if you don't, well theres another one starting up soon.

As with any larger tourney, the early stages are where the crap shooting is. Being tight through the first several orbits is not a bad thing. But you state you are getting fairly deep into some of these and then finding yourself relatively short stacked, so something needs to change between the early maniacal stages and the final table.

To me the solution is obvious. Get better cards more often!

LOL, or try jacking up your aggression a notch or two, steal one more time every 2 or 3 orbits. Remember that poker is not about the cards you get, it is about how you PLAY the cards you get against the people you are sitting with. You don't want to be playing the majority of your NLHE hands as if they are limit games. As much as you might like a well behaved game, you will not find it, and probably should not really want it.

Consider this, Harrington suggests that players bluff 10% of the time. But let's consider that is high, and players only bluff or semi-bluff 5% (1 hand in 20) of the time. With a full table of 9 or 10 seats, that suggests that somewhere near half the hands are won by a bluff. If we used Harrington's 10%, we could imagine 90+% of the time a hand is won by bluffing.

Are you getting your share of bluff wins?

Most of all have fun. You are paying to have fun, so have some!

move to strategy forum?

Anyway, the #1 problem I see is that you went broke on satellites, meaning you're probably not prepared to do well at the main event anyway.

If these satellites are running constantly, just push every starting hand, try to build a decent stack so you can better avoid the coinflips later in the tournament...

Thanks,

DJ11 - Stealing is not really an option. Perhaps you haven't watched or taken part... but a table has 4 limpers... the button raises all in with KJ suited. the big blind calls and 3 out of the 4 limpers call... most putting their tournament lives on the line. Players turn over a range from A8o to K3s to 57s....

I have pushed with AT only to be called by similar if not worse hands and come off just as bad.

I guess simply.... you have to go with the best hands and hope you get a good run.

Lik.... My bank wasn't something like 4000$... it was 400 (yeah ok, like 1 deposit)... and I was super satelliteing (24+2) and qualified for the $216 final qualifier on 2 occasions. So perhaps in light of more info, you might not have made that comment.

stealing is not an option? stealing is always an option in poker!!

seems like all you wanna do is get the big stack fast, when
you try to play like this you will get yourself into major trouble.

make sure your making the same raises with say 5 7s as you would with pocket Q's. make sure your gettin all your money into the pot when you do have the best hand. do these things are you should have a decent
run in any tourney.

Dantigua is right...it's almost impossible to steal in these tournaments. During the first 3-4 blinds you'l get at least 3 callers to your bet/reraise/all-in w/ any two cards. Like someone else said, you just needto get lucky and go on a run. It's funny, you can't play tight...and you can't steal.

I've placed in a few...but have played in countless. G/L man...

at the beggining its a donkeyfest... you should wait for a good hand in order to push all in... after 20 minutes more or less the game starts to be more tight so you can play your style.... remember that being aggresive is one of the most important keys to win cause only 2 of 225 wins, so you must take lots of risks if you wanna play the 2nd round...

these are definately the cream of the SUPERDONK crop. I havent made it to the final yet but then again, I havent played them in a while either. When I was trying I got as far as third and fourth, but just not enough. The way I did get close was to open at least 4 tables at the same time. (open one then when registration starts for the next, sit out and register for another, and so on and so on). So now try to play for stacks with pretty much anything...but still trying to limit the comp. If 5 people ahead of you are all in, its probably not the best time. If you have a premium hand like Aces or kings though go all in with as many people as possible. these things open up every couple minutes, so who cares if you bust. After you get a decent stack, then switch it up and try to just play your best and last till the end. Just because you're close to the end doesnt mean opponents wont call down with anything so, just watch out. I was the bubble boy (3rd) when my AK got killed by 29so...good luck

It is a freeroll, push all pairs and ak and aq hope for the best early and build a stack so u can play real poker.

Thanks guys.

I must be the biggest donk in here I made it to the final on sunday placing first or second twice in a row is difficult in any setting.My strategy is the same as any tournament I play real tight early and then loosen up as the field tightens up.But as any tournament go's in my opinion it is more about hanging around till the end and when the blinds start getting big you can go from chip chump to chip champ real quick.especially in these kind of tournaments where it is full of people making poor decisions.My motto is "poker is not about getting lucky its more about not getting unlucky."and that really holds true in those.Also i have found that if you stay away the first few orbits your better off. The field will go from 225 to about 125 by the time the blinds increase and then you can take the donkeys chips who won them with 64 off all in with four people in the pot. the check reraise is a powerful weapon in these tournies.Good luck and play as many as you can at a time.also i cracked aa with qq on the final table. but in any tournament you will win some you shouldn't and lose some you shouldn't
im gonna post my results on my blog at my poker site

Since its a round 1 freeroll you have to play really fast and move in with hands like a 10 and 88. You have to get very lucky to go to round 2, but then i would still keep the aggression up since i think only the top couple players in round 2 get to the final. And then for round 3, just win baby!

I thought i would respond to the post the other day I actually won the seat thru Full Tilt Poker how about that im patting my self on the back

Those round 1 / 2 things are ridiculous, you'll see the chips in preflop almost 100% of the time, with hands that don't warrant it. Fortunately, if you make around 500FTP / day, you get to go straight to the final.